Health minister Kalicharan Saraf said that from February 15, the doctors and other healthcare staff, including nurses and lab technicians, will have to mark their attendance through biometric attendance system.JAIPUR: Tightening the noose on healthcare staff who are habitual late comers and early-leavers, the health department has made biometric attendance system compulsory in all government hospitals coming under the health directorate.

Department officials said that they were frequently receiving complaints regarding irregular attendance of some doctors and healthcare staff.

Health minister Kalicharan Saraf said that from February 15, the doctors and other healthcare staff, including nurses and lab technicians, will have to mark their attendance through biometric attendance system.

Saraf also directed the officials to make arrangements of biometric attendance machines. He said that the respective officials of hospitals will have to arrange the machines using the funds from medical relief society.

The directions have been issued to make the attendance compulsory through biometric machines in districts hospital, sub-district hospitals, satellite hospitals, community health centres and primary health centres.

Earlier, Sawai Man Singh (SMS) Hospital had taken the initiative to make attendance of healthcare staff compulsory through biometric system. Such a system is already in place in the hospital.

Pali district has already implemented the biometric attendance system in all its government hospitals. In this endeavour, Pali has become the first district in the state where biometric attendance system has been installed for doctors, nurses, lab technicians and other staff in government hospitals.

They have installed 106 biometric machines in the district. Each biometric machine costs around Rs 2,000, which was procured from the from the funds of Rajasthan Medical Relief Society.

In the district, there are 83 primary health centres, 21 community health centres, one district hospital and one sub-district hospital. Health officials pointed out that recently they conducted sudden inspections and found large number of personnel absent which was a major deterrent in providing quality healthcare facilities to patients.